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heartbreak ━━━━━
━━━━━▼━━━━━
. . . ESHAN, INNER RIM
WYNN LIFTED A HAND out of the soapy water and levitated a bubble as high as it could go before it popped. The water smelled of mint and was cool against her skin. Luxury had never felt so easy as this. The anniversary festivities still felt blissfully far off even though their official start was mere hours away.
There was a knock at the door. After a brief pause, Elja's muffled voice asked, "May I enter, your Majesty?"
"You may," Wynn called after she reluctantly stepped out of the bathwater and donned a remarkably soft dressing robe. The door opened a second later to reveal Elja dressed in the outfit that had been fitted for Wynn.
"Where are the ladies maids?" Wynn asked, wringing out her hair. "They were hovering like flies near the door."
"I dismissed them to fetch your gown." Elja fidgeted with the cuff of her rather plain sleeve. A strange vertigo pulled at the sight of her sister masquerading as her. No jewels adorned her, no intricate patterns of weaving decorated her gown. "It will have to be me who does your hair. Yours is far too short to be believed. Sit."
Wynn took a seat on the cushioned stool in front of the vanity. The queen's dressing room was nearly half the size of Wynn's entire guest bedroom in the palace. It was, like the rest of the royal suite, remarkably bare. Not one personal item cluttered the shelves of the dressers. Wynn recalled playing hide and seek once with Elja while their mother was being dressed for a ball in this room.
Now it was only the two of them dancing with hollow ghosts of their shared past.
"I envy you," Elja said suddenly.
Wynn grunted as Elja yanked too hard on her hair. "I cannot imagine why."
"Can't you?" Elja told her quietly. "You walk through this world as if it is the easiest thing. You command an army, you return here and master our customs. You speak with dignity, with confidence. There is nothing you cannot do. I am stuck here in my bitterness. I walk through the world as if it owes me something it will never pay."
Wynn stared at her sister through the mirror. The same silver eyes that had seen lives that were different and still parallel, intersecting time and again. Her shoulders sagged. "What you do not see is that I am a failure amongst Jedi. My nature of bending rules is a dangerous one. I only act with confidence because I am too selfish to accept reality."
